The Healing Power of Compassionate Thoughts

Much has been written about the benefits of positive thinking. Psychology, self-help and New Age books and articles abound with affirmations, creative visualization techniques and other methods for people to use to turn negative thought patterns inside out and create more joyous motifs. Even the developments that modern physics has made in the last hundred years have served to confirm the relationship that exists between our minds and the quality of life that we experience.

The impact of a shift in thinking is so pronounced, in fact, that we can quite literally feel it in our bodies if we concentrate. You can experience this for yourself if you dwell on a hurtful past experience, noting your physical and emotional state afterwards, and then contrast this with a period of dwelling on past events that brought you intense joy and happiness. Mind and body are really one system, and the loving regard that we give to one will be beneficial for the other.

Unfortunately, many of us harbor the belief - in one form or another - that we don't deserve happiness or fulfillment in the first place. We may also look at what we perceive as ignorance and folly in the human race at large and conclude that people should accept the misery that they've brought into their lives as their just desserts. Beliefs like these serve to block much of the good that we're trying to manifest with positive thinking. We're basically stating that we want something and rejecting it at the same time, and thus continually finding ourselves in a stalemate.

The only way to combat the limiting and destructive beliefs that we hold about others and ourselves is with love. Compassionate thoughts accept a person's shortcomings while always seeing what is best in them. Holding compassion in our hearts automatically begins to expand our minds beyond the misguided thought patterns that had been holding us back. It allows us to see the goodness in everyone, including ourselves. Thus we can settle the conflict that had always been raging inside us, as our desires and our beliefs regarding what we deserve become one.

Positive thinking is essential to the health of any human being. But when we don't hold a loving regard for ourselves and out spiritual brothers and sisters in this world, our attempts at positive thinking lack the heart and energy necessary to really change our lives. Thoughts that are propelled by compassion, on the other hand, will always work to bring about what is best for self, other, and world.